


Names

by Scotty1609



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Brogane, Character Death, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Keith & Pidge are Cryptid Bros, Keith and Shiro are Siblings, Kid Fic, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Minor Character Death, Sassy Keith (Voltron), Sassy Pidge | Katie Holt, Shiro (Voltron)-centric, They like Creepypasta, and adorable, they are children - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 03:54:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9699251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scotty1609/pseuds/Scotty1609
Summary: Several things define Shiro's and Matt's relationship- the Accident, their siblings, their collective passion for space- but none other bonded them more than their names.“Well, we could hyphenate. Shirogane-Holt, or Holt-Shirogane.” Matt's eyes blew open, and his jaw dropped in shock. “I- I mean- if you wanted it, that is- I mean my last name- I- um-”“Takashi...” Matt interrupted him in a reverent whisper. Matt's fingers gently interlaced with his boyfriend's, and he licked his lips before he spoke again. “Takashi, I-”





	

**Author's Note:**

> So instead of working on all the fics I promised I'd work on or studying like I'm supposed to be, I wrote a Shatt AU where Shiro and Matt adopt Keith and Pidge and everything is fluffy shits and giggles (except only it isn't because these boys were born for angst).
> 
> Shatt AU w/Keith and Pidge (and the others)
> 
> Sappy name. Sorry.
> 
> WARNINGS: brief graphic description of injuries, mentions of cancer, minor character death, GAY

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He could remember the accident like it was yesterday.

He and Matt were being driven by Matt's father, Samuel (also known as 'the Commander' as a tribute to the good doctor's time in the military), to the International Space Museum for their first not-date. 'Not-date' because they were only thirteen and fourteen respectively; they weren't allowed to date yet. But, if it was a 'not-date', Matt had insisted, then they could _totally_ go. Samuel and his wife, Colleen, had found the situation humorous and agreed. Shiro's foster-mother had not agreed at first, but upon Shiro's insistence that it was a 'not-date', she had eventually buckled. It helped that she had three other children pulling at her skirts at the time, begging for snacks and toys.

So they were there, in the Commander's teal, 80s-esque Dodge Caravan, complete with wood siding around the outside. Matt was sitting in the back with Shiro, the boys pressed against opposite doors as they eyed each others' hands tentatively. Samuel was regaling them with his latest lecture for his Astrophysics class, making at least three “It's not rocket science” jokes on their journey. Shiro couldn't help but smile at the man. Samuel Holt was like a father to Shiro, seeing as how the boy hadn't seen his own for nearly ten years. Shiro popped from foster home to foster home before being settled with his latest guardian, a kindly older woman by the name of Ryner. Ryner was probably Shiro's favorite foster-mother he'd ever had. She was intelligent and open-minded, and her greenhouse was nothing to gawf at either.

“So, then I'll go into more depth about the engineering behind...”

Shiro tuned out the Commander's speech in favor of turning to look at Matt. Owlish eyes looked back at him from behind wide-rimmed glasses, and Matt blushed brightly before snapping his head around to look out the window. Shiro felt himself blush as well, and he focused back on Samuel.

“How about that, huh?! Yes, it'd be something, to fly all the way out to Pluto's moons! Well, Pluto is no longer considered a planet, but it will always be a planet in our hearts, won't it Mat-”

There was the blare of a horn, and then Shiro was being crushed.

It all happened in a heartbeat.

One pulse, the Commander was talking and Matt was looking between the man and Shiro.

The next pulse, Shiro was waking up in a tilted world. There was fire and sirens and screaming, and he couldn't see straight past the pounding in his head. He could remember very little after the actual impact, but what he _did_ remember was quite vivid.

Matt's face had been pressed against a shattered window which led to concrete, blood covering half of his face and dripping down his throat. Samuel looked no better, his nose broken by the air bag. He wasn't moving, didn't seem to be _breathing._ Shiro could feel a numbness racing up his arm, felt warm blood over the bridge of his nose, and peered down at his right side. He quickly wished he hadn't. His arm, crushed between his seat and the metal door, was twisted and burnt. Flesh and skin had been ripped up and charred, and he could see bone sticking out in several places.

He had turned his head and heaved, wincing when vomit landed on Matt's lap beneath him. “M-Matt,” Shiro croaked. “Matt, wake up! C-Commander, Commander wake up! Matt! _Matt_!”

Sometime between then and the ambulance ride, Shiro had blacked out.

When he woke up, he was missing an arm and his best friend.

The Commander had passed away en route to the hospital, and Matt was in a coma for nearly six months. The entire time, Shiro blamed himself. If he hadn't asked Matt out, hadn't asked the Commander to drive them to the Museum, then none of this would have ever happened.

The boy wasn't getting better, either. After all, he couldn't focus himself on his physical therapy when his thoughts were only centered around Matt. The young Holt's atmosphere had drawn Shiro in long ago, but it was the gravity of the situation and Shiro's emotions that kept him in orbit. Ryner tried to help the teen, as did Colleen- bless the grieving woman's soul-, but nothing could get the teenager to do his PT exercises. Nothing that was except for...

“Shiro-Taka! Shiro-Taka gotsta do eks-er-size-is!”

Shiro smiled weakly at the shaggy-haired boy who was sitting in front of him criss-cross. Hands on his ankles, the child rocked himself back and forth as he pouted up at Shiro.

“Shiro-Taka gotsta work!”

“Keith,” Shiro groaned. Keith was the only one to call him 'Taka', after his first name. It was a habit he had been trying to break the two and a half-year-old of, and in resistance, Keith had taken to calling him 'Shiro-Taka'.

“Shiro- _Takaaaa_!”

“Shiroooo,” Shiro corrected the boy teasingly, using his foot to push Keith off-balance. The child toppled to the floor, looking up from beneath heavy bangs to pout at Shiro. The teen couldn't help but laugh and leaned over to heft his little brother up on one hip. His other arm- or rather what was left of it- gestured as though to support Keith's bottom before Shiro realized he couldn't do that. Wincing, he forced his bicep to retreat and instead nuzzled his nose against Keith's. Keith shrieked enthusiastically, reciprocating the eskimo kiss.

“Shiro-Taka needta do eks-er-size-is!” Keith demanded again, kicking chubby legs to be let down on the floor. “Make Shiro-Taka's new arm strong!”

“That's right,” Shiro nodded as he let the child down. “Shiro's gotta work on his exercises. Doesn't he?”

Keith nodded in confirmation, grabbing Shiro's larger fingers in his tiny hands, and plopped back down on the floor next to Shiro's rubber band. “Work!”

With a sigh, Shiro accepted the fact that his physical therapist was now a two and a half-year-old toddler. Until as it were six months later, when Matt awoke and smacked some sense into Shiro about his guilt. (“Really? _Really_? You'd better be careful what you say next, Shirogane, because-”) Matt's righteous fury knew no bounds, and it humored Ryner and Colleen Holt to no end.

Colleen Holt discovered her pregnancy- a very much so surprise pregnancy- a mere month into Matt's coma. Distraught, the woman had weighed all of her options carefully before deciding to keep the child. While Keith was Shiro's helper, Shiro was Colleen's. At thirteen years old, the teenager offered her a shoulder to cry on and an ear to listen to stories about Samuel and Matt. Shiro learned more about his friend than he ever thought he would. Matt lost his last baby tooth at nine years old on the playground of his elementary school. He had cried because the Tooth Fairy wouldn't visit him unless he had the lost tooth. This provided the back story to Shiro's day in grade school searching the soccer field with Matt- the Holt boy had never actually said what they were looking for. When Matt was five, he had toppled out of a shopping cart at Walmart and gotten a split lip. Colleen joked that his jabber jaws saved him from cracking his skull open.

When Matt awoke, it was to a dead father and a heavily pregnant mother. Shiro stood to the side, arm crossed with his prosthetic, as Matt sobbed into his mother's shoulder. Shiro felt uncomfortable, like he didn't belong in the room. He _knew_ he didn't belong in the room. But for some reason, the small Holt family disagreed, and Colleen and Matt both threw their arms out to drag Shiro in to a group hug.

Their friendship only grew from there. Life required much of the teenaged boys from then on, and so they pressed aside their budding romance for the time being. Shiro started walking Keith to preschool, both boys started high school, and Katherine Holt was born.

“She looks like a pigeon,” Keith had declared upon meeting the baby- Katie- for the first time. Shiro had face-palmed, groaning at the exclamation. “What?” Keith asked with a frown. “Her lip is pointy like a beak, an' she's bald like a pigeon!”

“Keith, _please_ stop talking.”

Colleen, to her own, had merely laughed and ruffled Keith's hair. “That'd be one doozy of a nick-name, wouldn't it?” she asked the child. “Pigeon?”

“Pidge for short!” Matt had exclaimed, laughing and slapping at his knee. Shiro groaned once more. The poor infant was going to have an identity crisis at age two.

So Katie became Pidge, Shiro convinced Keith to stop calling him 'Taka', and nearly ten years later, Shiro was still thinking about his name.

“Hey, Shiro!” Keith called from the kitchen. “Where the hell is the rice-cooker?”

“Language,” Shiro called back absent-mindedly.

“Oh, sorry. Where the _fuck_ is the rice-cooker?”

“ _Keith_!”

“Hey, who's the one cooking for you and your boyfriend, huh?”

Shiro groaned, shuffling about a stack of papers rather than focusing on them long enough to actually study. “Under the sink.”

“Why is it there? What the hell's wrong with you?”

“Keith, _please_ watch your language when Pidge is here.”

“And about that!” Keith exclaimed, coming to stand in front of his older brother-slash-guardian. The boy held a spoon eye-level with Shiro, batter dripping off it and onto Shiro's notes. “Why do _I_ have to be the one to hang out with the half-pint?”

“She's ten, not two, Keith.”

“Yeah, and I'm thirteen! Why do I have to entertain her?”

“We have this conversation every time Pidge comes over, and you two always have a good time. And anyways, why are you always this chatty and opinionated when _I'm_ the one talking to you, but never when your friends are?”

“I don't have friends.”

“What do you call Lance and Hunk?”

“Unfortunate necessities.”

Shiro's objection was cut off by the front door opening, the sound of Matt's loud, “ _Shiro_?” echoing through the apartment. High-pitched chattering followed the call, signaling Pidge's presence with her older brother. The Holt siblings were a regular in the Shirogane-Kogane household (the _Bro_ gane household, as Pidge called it), especially ever since Matt and Shiro had officially started dating nearly two years earlier. Matt practically lived at Shiro's apartment, and where Matt went, Pidge went. This caused an odd sort of friendship to occur between Pidge and Keith. Keith was a wall-flower, and Pidge was a recluse. But get them together, and be prepared for trouble (make it double). The two had a massive cork board in Keith's room with red yarn tying conspiracy theories to Creepypasta articles. Shiro was pretty sure they had a betting pool on which cryptid would be discovered first too- Bigfoot or Nessie (Keith had two dollars in on Bigfoot, while Pidge had three buttons and a nickle in on Nessie).

Keith had gotten into conspiracy theories at a young age. Shiro bought the boy a Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not book for his eighth birthday, and there was something about a Mothman or something or other that hooked the child. Ever since then, Keith had been addicted to developing theories and plots. Ryner had told the boy that she would be eagerly awaiting his first sci-fi novel. But then Ryner had died, and Keith had stopped sharing his theories with anyone other than Shiro or Pidge, and occasionally Matt when the man had a minute and Keith was feeling social. When Ryner died, her foster children were scattered to different homes. Shiro, being Keith's half-brother, had a foot in the door already to adopt the child even though he was only in his early twenties. It had taken a lot of convincing and arguing on the ever-intelligent and persistent Colleen Holt's part, but the judge had given Shiro full custody of Keith.

“Hey, babe,” Matt greeted Shiro with a kiss to the cheek. Pidge appeared on Shiro's opposite side and wrapped her arms around his neck, leaving a peck on the other side of his face. Shiro chuckled deeply, tickling the girl's stomach until she let go.

“Hi,” Shiro returned Matt's greeting with a kiss to the lips. Pidge and Keith both groaned and pretended to vomit. “How was your day?”

Matt collapsed onto the sofa next to his boyfriend, bemoaning his existence and cursing his professors. “And then Dr. Sen made me grade all of them. _All of them_ , Shiro. That's two-hundred exams! Non-scantron exams! I had to sign off on each essay portion, too, and _God_ I never thought I'd get so tired of writing my own name!”

And Shiro was thinking about names again.

“'Matt Holt' can't be too bad to sign.” Shiro elbowed his boyfriend lightly. “Not as bad as 'Takashi Shirogane'.”

“Yup. I've got the shortest name ever, and it was still _horrible_.” Matt shuttered. “Hey, we could always switch up our names to even it out. Instead of one long and one short, we'd have two medium-length names. Matt Shirogane and Takashi Holt? How about that?”

 _Matt Shirogane_ rang in Shiro's ears, followed shortly by _Takashi Holt_ which made his cheeks turn bright red. Coughing into his elbow, the small box in his pocket growing heavy, Shiro croaked out, “Or we could just say 'screw it' and have really, _really_ long names.” Matt cocked an eyebrow, and Shiro shrugged. “Well, we could hyphenate. Shirogane-Holt, or Holt-Shirogane.” Matt's eyes blew open, and his jaw dropped in shock. “I- I mean- if you wanted it, that is- I mean my last name- I- um-”

“Takashi...” Matt interrupted him in a reverent whisper. Matt's fingers gently interlaced with his boyfriend's, and he licked his lips before he spoke again. “Takashi, I-”

“Dinner's ready!”

And _boy_ did Shiro want to tan Keith's snarky little hide.

As Keith and Pidge brought out the pork and rice bowls, Shiro glared harshly at the black-haired boy. Keith played innocent the whole while, sending flashes of a smile at Matt and his older brother. The Holt man was too embarrassed to notice the sarcastic smirks, but Shiro saw them. And he kicked Keith under the table when the boy opened his mouth to speak again. “Ouch! Shir-”

“ _Ooo_ kay,” Pidge drew out, frowning pointedly at her brother's red face and Shiro's scowl. “What happened with you two?”

Matt yelped “Nothing!” at the exact same time that Shiro cried out, “What do you mean?” The couple looked at each other, both steaming in their embarrassment, before digging in to their pork bowls. Keith groaned and rolled his eyes, while Pidge remained looking innocently confused.

When they finished eating, Shiro asked Keith and Pidge if they had finished their homework- they had- before sending the two off to Keith's room to 'play' (Keith glared daggers at the word, and Shiro knew he would pay for it later). When Shiro returned to the dining area, Matt had finished clearing the table and was tucking left over food away into Tupperware containers. When the older man went to wash his hands, Shiro silently slipped up behind him and wrapped his arms around Matt's stomach. Matt let out a yelp, smacking his boyfriend's chest with a soapy hand. “What the hell, Shiro?”

“Language around the kids, Matt.”

Matt huffed. “'The kids' have worse language than both of us combined, Shiro.” Rinsing and drying his hands, Matt maneuvered in his boyfriend's arms until the two men were chest-to-chest. Matt, a good head shorter than his lover, reached up to leave peppering kisses on Shiro's jawline. The younger man's chest rumbled in pleasure, and he rested his hands on Matt's hips. When Matt began to grind against him though, Shiro quickly separated their bodies. “ _The kids_ , Matt.”

Matt rolled his eyes as he turned to dig around the fridge. “Like I said, Shiro, they're a bit more knowledgeable than you give them credit for. Public school starts perverting them young these days.”

“Altea Middle High is a great school!”

“I never said it wasn't,” Matt said matter-of-factly as he pressed a cold slice of what looked to be mint chocolate pudding into Shiro's chest. “Here, have some food goo.”

“I love your food goo.”

“Y'know I could _probably_ make a dirty joke out of that.”

“But you won't,” Shiro said as he spooned some 'food goo' into his boyfriend's waiting mouth. “C'mon. Let's sit.”

The couple cuddled up against each other on the loveseat, spoon-feeding pudding to one another and ignoring Keith's and Pidge's enthusiastic shouts about who would win in a fight (El Chupacabra or Slenderman). When the bowl was gone, Matt dropped it onto the coffee table before going back to rest against Shiro's side. “Hey, babe...?”

“Hm?” Shiro asked, eyes closed as Matt's fingers ran through the white tuft of hair on top of his head.

“Did you mean it earlier?”

“Hm?”

“About... hyphenating.”

Shiro's eyes snapped open, and he peered down at his boyfriend cautiously. Matt was fidgeting in his seat, looking nervous and excited and fearful. Gently, to soothe the older man, Shiro left a kiss to the scar on Matt's left brow. “Of course I did.”

“...And is that a ring-box in your pocket or are you just excited to see me?”

Shiro nearly leaped out of his seat at that, staring at Matt openly.

“Hey, my mom's a lawyer and my dad was a doctor. I'm observant!”

With shaking hands, Shiro pulled the red velvet box out of his sweatpants pocket and held it out in his palm. “I- ah- I wasn't sure how to do this, I was just going to ask when Keith and Pidge fell asleep, and I-”

But then Matt was kissing him, passionately and openly. Shiro could taste the mint chocolate pudding on his boyfriend's tongue, could smell residue of sweat and cologne on the man's skin, could feel hot breath on his face. And _hell_ if it wasn't making all the blood rush out of his head and down south. After what felt like several minutes, Matt withdrew from the kiss, resting his forehead against Shiro's. His hand went to open the ring-box, revealing twin palladium bands. One was sized perfectly for his own hand, Matt realized, while the other was larger for Shiro's. Nearly vibrating with his nerves, Matt took the larger ring out and gently pushed it onto Shiro's flesh ring-finger. Shiro did the same for Matt, tears coming to the man's eyes when his lover looked at him with such awe.

“When did you even have time to take my measurements?”

“I guessed,” Shiro spoke honestly and it made Matt laugh. Cupping his fiance's cheeks, Matt kissed Shiro all over his face- his brows, his nose and the scar over its bridge, his eyelids and cheeks, finally coming to rest with kissing the younger man's lips.

“I love you, Takashi Shirogane-Holt.”

Shiro's heart jumped for joy at the words. “I love you, too, Matthew Holt-Shirogane.”

“I think we should go Shirogane-Holt. It sounds better.”

“You think?”

“I _know_.”

The couple kissed again, and their embrace was shortly followed by a loud shriek and a declaration of “Eeew! Adults are _gross_!” Laughing, Matt stood and began chasing Keith and Pidge about the apartment. It only took a little goading to get Shiro to join in, and soon enough, both children were thrown over Shiro's shoulders like sacks of potatoes while Matt tickled them mercilessly.

The good news was told to Colleen the next morning, and the woman burst into tears.

It took a few moments for Shiro to realize the tears were of grief rather than joy.

Colleen Holt had cancer.

Shiro and Matt insisted on pushing the wedding back (“We don't even need a wedding, Mom, we can just elope!” was followed shortly by, “So help me Matthew Albert Holt, if you take a wedding away from poor Takashi and have the man elope with you, I will haunt you from the grave.”), but Colleen told them she was terminal. So, rather than delay the proceedings, Shiro and Matt pulled them up. Three months after they got engaged, Takashi Shirogane and Matthew Holt became Mr. and Mr. Shirogane-Holt under the pecan tree in the Holts' backyard.

Their mutual friend, Allura, planned the whole thing out, from the tuxes to the cake. She was also their maid of honor, a tearful event for the young woman. Her uncle, she told them, was an ordained minister. So a happy-go-lucky man with the bushiest orange mustache Shiro had ever met performed their ceremony. Keith was Shiro's best man (upon the insistence that thirteen was much too old to be a ring-bearer) and Pidge was the ring-bearer (upon the insistence that 'flower girl' was a sexist title and until it was renamed, she would rather be the ring-bearer). The Holts' dog, Gunther, instead donned a dress and played 'flower-girl', dropping dandelions out of his mouth at Shiro's feet and giving a happy bark. There were a handful guests- a professor and a few classmates of Matt's alongside some of Shiro's coworkers and a small brood of Holt family relatives- but it was better than Shiro could have ever imagined it to be. Keith even invited his friends (“Unfortunate _necessities,_ Shiro.”) Lance and Hunk. The two became fast friends with Pidge as well, which created a team of young troublemakers for the newlyweds.

Their honeymoon happened on a long weekend, arriving Friday and leaving Monday, as the two couldn't bear to be away from their family for too long. They didn't go far- just to a fancy hotel that Colleen paid for in full, having spa-days and making multiple visits to the International Space Museum down the street.

Colleen Holt died six months later.

She went in her sleep, peacefully. It was a comfort to Matt, but Pidge wasn't old enough to appreciate such a morbid fact. Shiro adopted Pidge alongside his husband, even taking the fifteen-year-old Gunther into their tiny apartment for as long as the dog would live. Keith didn't have many real qualms about sharing the space with Pidge, despite his loud and obnoxious pleas against it. She helped him with his science homework, and he helped her with her reading and writing. Pidge was better with numbers than letters, Shiro came to find, and Keith appreciated having a personal tutor (despite the fact that said tutor was three years younger than him).

Matt finished up his double Masters in Physics and Astrology, and Shiro was able to go back to college to start on his own degree. The man had no regrets in taking in Keith, but he had always wished to go back to college- and now he could.

Pidge and Keith started at Altea High School at the same time (Pidge skipped several grades), and Keith started dating one of his 'unfortunate necessities', the boy named Lance. Their small family acquired two cats- Blackie and Rover- who unfortunately had kittens. (Keith and Pidge named the litter Red, Blue, Yellow, and Green. When asked why, they insisted it was an alien conspiracy. Shiro didn't ask them to expound.) Several more years passed, and Shiro got a job as a teacher and guide at the International Space Museum. Every time the man looked up at the 3D dome, pinpointing constellations and picking out nebulas, he felt a warmth spread through his phantom limb. The names of the clusters rang out in his mind, and he wished to always remember them. He taught the names to Keith and Pidge, and the two teenagers were soon just as invested in space as they were cryptids.

It wasn't until they were waving Pidge off to her internship at NASA that Matt took Shiro's hand in his own, kissed his cheek, and whispered to him, “I'll remember this like yesterday.”

“Always,” Shiro responded, sealing the deal with a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys liked it!! I ship like half of the VLD ships possible (Lidge, Klance, Kidge, Hidge, Heith, Klunk/Klank, Shidge, etc....) but Shatt is just life goals, okay? And Shatt with kids is life GOALS- like, just- yes???
> 
> Anyways! I hope you enjoyed!!


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